A little bit about testing applications and user feedback
Recently, more and more often commercial software is found, where the most stupid errors that hinder the work with him. Unfortunately, to some extent this concerns the navigation software. I'll start with examples.
The first time I got a significant jamb in the software Navitel. When I entered the coordinates on the keyboard, the symbol `(backward quotes) was displayed instead of ', which cost me time searching for the required coordinates. In the Navitel bugtracker, this error was known for a long time, there were a lot of indignant users, but the fix was only in the 5th version. At the same time, version 3.5 was developed for at least a year. What cost developers to replace just one character? The fifth version is no exception. Almost every week there are new versions of Navitel, where everything is fixed just not the problems that users complain about.
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The second navigation software is Shturmann. Starting with version 1.3 for navigators with the ability to install a SIM card, they introduced an innovation that allows you to automatically recognize the balance via SMS. All would be nothing for Moscow, but for regional users with each such request a certain amount was deducted from the balance sheet, since The MTS SIM card supplied with the device, even though it had a single price for traffic throughout Russia, but the rest of the roaming services were dragged as usual by draconian sums. Instead of adding a “tick” to enable / disable this function, the developers released a new version of the software a month later, where they simply removed this function, and after two months added a “tick”. As a result, it took 3 months to solve the problem. Which of course is much less than in other projects. Provided that a large number of users wrote about this problem.
Another problem in version 1.3 that hinders is the automatic activation of the GSM module. And in order to post a bug report on the official site, you are offered to use the forum where your attempts go unnoticed (already the 3rd month) or call Moscow’s technical support phone number for regions. Why not make a bug report form for users or in extreme cases publish an email, to which you can send your comments? Moreover, this error also crashes the following: when the GSM module is automatically turned on, the SIM card menu refuses to work.
A good example is the Firefox bugtracker. But here, not everything went smoothly. Actually, Firefox served as the last straw for writing this text. By chance, I discovered a bug in the latest version, which opens the browser tabs endlessly. As a decent user, I went to the Firefox site and tried to find a link to the bugtracker. Having rummaged on the site for several minutes I did not find a single mention of any bugtracker. Google came to the rescue and I went to the bugzilla.mozilla.org site, where I was asked to register without all the captcha and brought out a form for entering the problem keywords. Everything good ends here, in the list of similar problems I found a description of my problem dated 2003.
Unfortunately, there are dozens of such examples in any project.
Why all this text? If you start developing software, first of all take care of user feedback. And the best way to deal with bugs in software is bugtracker, not a forum. Even habrahabr doesn’t hurt a sane bugtracker for users.
The first time I got a significant jamb in the software Navitel. When I entered the coordinates on the keyboard, the symbol `(backward quotes) was displayed instead of ', which cost me time searching for the required coordinates. In the Navitel bugtracker, this error was known for a long time, there were a lot of indignant users, but the fix was only in the 5th version. At the same time, version 3.5 was developed for at least a year. What cost developers to replace just one character? The fifth version is no exception. Almost every week there are new versions of Navitel, where everything is fixed just not the problems that users complain about.
')
The second navigation software is Shturmann. Starting with version 1.3 for navigators with the ability to install a SIM card, they introduced an innovation that allows you to automatically recognize the balance via SMS. All would be nothing for Moscow, but for regional users with each such request a certain amount was deducted from the balance sheet, since The MTS SIM card supplied with the device, even though it had a single price for traffic throughout Russia, but the rest of the roaming services were dragged as usual by draconian sums. Instead of adding a “tick” to enable / disable this function, the developers released a new version of the software a month later, where they simply removed this function, and after two months added a “tick”. As a result, it took 3 months to solve the problem. Which of course is much less than in other projects. Provided that a large number of users wrote about this problem.
Another problem in version 1.3 that hinders is the automatic activation of the GSM module. And in order to post a bug report on the official site, you are offered to use the forum where your attempts go unnoticed (already the 3rd month) or call Moscow’s technical support phone number for regions. Why not make a bug report form for users or in extreme cases publish an email, to which you can send your comments? Moreover, this error also crashes the following: when the GSM module is automatically turned on, the SIM card menu refuses to work.
A good example is the Firefox bugtracker. But here, not everything went smoothly. Actually, Firefox served as the last straw for writing this text. By chance, I discovered a bug in the latest version, which opens the browser tabs endlessly. As a decent user, I went to the Firefox site and tried to find a link to the bugtracker. Having rummaged on the site for several minutes I did not find a single mention of any bugtracker. Google came to the rescue and I went to the bugzilla.mozilla.org site, where I was asked to register without all the captcha and brought out a form for entering the problem keywords. Everything good ends here, in the list of similar problems I found a description of my problem dated 2003.
Unfortunately, there are dozens of such examples in any project.
Why all this text? If you start developing software, first of all take care of user feedback. And the best way to deal with bugs in software is bugtracker, not a forum. Even habrahabr doesn’t hurt a sane bugtracker for users.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/134625/
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